SPOILERS AHEAD – As with my review of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, I’m going to start incorporating discussions of the connectivity requirements into these reviews, because I feel context is important to most movies and having to connect a single movie to a bigger plot line needs to be taken into consideration.
This movie disappointed a lot of viewers, and wore out a lot of critics. Worldwide box office is looking to finish around $475M-$500M, and I think Marvel Studios was hoping for $150M more, at least. Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania was supposed to be a strong start to the MCU’s Phase Five, and get fans excited for the Multiverse Saga.
So…what happened?
What needed to happen in this movie?
- A firm establishment of Kang the Conqueror as a major villain of at least Phase Five
- An introduction of Cassie Lang as Stature
I feel a headache taking hold as I think about describing what went wrong here. Words are failing me. Speaking of headache, I think I’ll start with M.O.D.O.K.
M.O.D.O.K. was one of my favorite comic book villains, an A.I.M. scientist who was experimented upon, producing a super-sized skull and brain, giving him psionic abilities. His arms and legs were regular size, so the weight of his head necessitated a hover chair for conveyance. The way M.O.D.O.K. was originally drawn, he vaguely resembled someone with dwarfism, but with an angry and insane countenance.
The MCU version has Darren Cross (Corey Stoll), the villain of Ant-Man, found in the Quantum Realm and recruited by Kang as a “hunter.” Same body proportions, same basic power set. Marvel Studios decided to just take Stoll’s face and stretch it to ridiculous proportions to fill the allocated space. Not only does he not look menacing, it was decided M.O.D.O.K. would be a sad-sack lackey with deep feelings of inferiority. So of course he turns on Kang at the end, in a very lame and un-earned redemption arc.
I bring this up because M.O.D.O.K. has the closest thing to a character arc in the movie!
When Janet van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer) is rescued from the Quantum Realm at the end of Ant-Man & The Wasp, she apparently never tells anyone Kang is still there, hellbent on escaping and causing havoc across multiple universes. Quantumania is the revealing of her time spent there, meeting Kang, and then working to trap him there when she realizes his true intentions.
She, Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), his daughter Cassie (Kathryn Newton), and Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) get sucked into the Quantum Realm at the beginning of the movie and separated into two groups. Kang captures Scott and Cassie and uses the latter as a hostage to force her dad to find and retrieve the device Janet sabotaged in order to power his escape technology.
The subplot of the movie, and it isn’t developed much, is socially-conscious Cassie reminding Scott and Hope what heroes are made of, and they need to do more than just escape back home: Kang is a tyrant ruling over the aliens of the Quantum Realm, and they yearn to be free of him.
There are some visually-messy battle sequences thrown in, but they don’t come close to replacing the lack of character drama. Let’s jump to one more problem with the plot — the ending.
I believe there were three endings under consideration: 1) Scott dies battling Kang while the rest escape home, 2) Everyone makes it home safely, or 3) Scott and Hope are trapped in the Quantum Realm while the rest escape home. The movie makes it look like it is headed to outcome three, but then a portal opens behind them and they walk through to return to their family. It is oddly shot and oddly executed. My guess is they wanted Scott and Hope back for the next Avengers movie and didn’t want to have to deal with finding screen time showing how they returned to Earth.
As for Kang (Jonathan Majors)? He’s great. He’s a solid blend of charm and menace. Viewers are left with wanting more. Kang does not save the movie as a whole, though. Not by a long shot. There is not a central concept or character worth sinking your teeth into. There is not that one scene you’ll remember for months, if not years.
I’m left wondering if it was all worth it. I never felt Scott or Hope were driving the story along, and that the whole thing (introducing Kang the Conqueror) could have been done differently without the Ant-Man crew’s involvement. I do feel more confident in the upcoming Guardians Of The Galaxy Volume 3, I think it will have a stronger story and more viewer investment.
